Recently Internet shopping has grown in rapid pace. A lot of customers are buying merchandise from Internet stores. Naturally this has increased the amount of Internet stores. Customers are used to search the cheapest price from the Internet. By finding the cheapest store they save a lot of money. However, there are always some concerns about the reliability of the store. This is particularly problem when the customer finds a new store with the cheapest price. However, if the customer has not used or does not know anyone who has used the store, he/she cannot know if the store is reliable and what is the quality of service. This is particularly problem in the internet stores as it is easy to design a store that looks credible. Sometimes the designs of credible stores are even copied.
To solve the problems mentioned above several different solutions have been developed. For example, warning systems and software for detecting untrustworthy internet pages have been developed. The warning software is arranged to detect suspicious elements and network addresses from the pages that the user is accessing. This type of software is usually automatic and it downloads updates from the software provider. Some products have also a feedback possibility. A drawback of this solution is that it is arranged to detect if the webpage is secure or not. Suspicious webpages are then reported to the user. However, this does not give any indication of the reliability of the store but only the security of the webpage.
In order to provide further information social networks and automatic systems for have been developed. In social networks the members of networks collect recommendations to the network. The drawback of a social network is that the user must first find out a social network that is extensive enough. Automatic systems are based on technical measurements. For example, if a certain store gets a lot of traffic, it is usually a sign of good and trusted store. Similar systems can be internal systems within certain site. For example, in auction websites the users can give opinions regarding to sellers and buyers. However, as these opinions are not anonymous, the reliability can be affected because as the users might not give negative feedback easily as the user giving the feedback might be afraid of revenge feedback.
In peer to peer networking distributed reliability systems are introduced. In this kind of systems the users give feedback that is shared among the network. The reliability computation is distributed to the users themselves and thus, the reliability of the computing itself is in doubt. Thus, there is a need for a solution that provides security, reliability and other information to users of the network so that the user can have a secure and reliable service in the network.